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The IBJ Podcast with Mason King: Daily Summaries Delivered
by IBJ Media
A weekly take on business news in central Indiana from the Indianapolis Business Journal.
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- 5 days ago49 min
Trump warns our elections are vulnerable. What is Indiana doing to secure midterms?
Election Day is scheduled for Nov. 3, so we’re just a bit more than three months away. This is the midterms, so there’s a lot at stake at the federal and state levels, in additional to many referendums for local school districts. On July 16, President Trump delivered a 26-minute prime-time address about election security, warning us that our elections are vulnerable to fraud and need immediate attention. Among his claims, Trump said China was able to acquire 220 million U.S. voter files in 2020 and wants to exploit that data. He also said a Department of Homeland Security investigation found that 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in federal elections. Regular listeners of the IBJ Podcast know we already had scheduled a return visit with Chetrice Romero, senior cybersecurity adviser for law firm Ice Miller, to talk specifically about election security, so the president’s address gave us even more grist for the mill. Romero has worked extensively with the state and federal government on election security and is currently consulting with state and county officials on November’s election. In this week’s edition of IBJ Podcast, she starts off by putting Trump’s comments in context and gauging the threat level of his claims. She then goes in great detail explaining the many steps that local and state officials are taking in Indiana to secure the election. And she weighs in on proposals to go back to an all-paper voting system.
- 1 weeks ago53 min
Indy Parks finishing citywide upgrades with $150M infusion. But what’s next, and what about new parks?
This is prime parks season for folks in Indianapolis who want to hit splash pads, climb jungle gyms or just grab some grass in the shade. What they’re finding is dozens of parks with new or improved trails, sports fields, shelters, bathrooms, water features and playgrounds. The Indy Parks Department is nearing the finish of $150 million in upgrades to about a third of its 218 parks, using a huge infusion of funds outside of its typical $6 million annual budget for capital improvements. Some of the projects are wholesale transformations, such as turning Riverside Golf Course into Riverside Adventure Park. Some are more modest but perform the essential service of providing safe and modern playgrounds for neighborhood kids. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Indy Parks leaders Brittany Crone and Andre Denman discuss the funding and execution of this extraordinary wave of upgrades and how several of the biggest projects came about. They also tackle the question of what comes next, given the size of the annual capital improvements budget. And they discuss the likelihood of creating new parks in a city with some recreation gaps.
- 2 weeks ago47 min
Pete the Planner on Trump’s idea for rescuing Social Security and who picks up the tab
According to a report last month from the Social Security Administration, the trust fund that the government uses to help pay out benefits to retirees is expected to run out in late 2032. At that point, Social Security will only be able to pay 78% of your scheduled retirement benefits. This isn’t a surprise: We’ve known for many years it eventually would happen, but there hasn’t been enough political will in Washington, D.C., to rescue the system. Late last year, President Trump began making references to the public retirement system used by Australia. On July 6, Trump made his most definitive declaration yet, saying his administration is looking at adopting the Australian system — or at least elements of the Australian system — and would try to get Congress onboard. There is no magic wand in this scenario. Merging one system into another – or adding a giant appendage to the current system – wouldn’t be easy. As IBJ financial columnist Peter Dunn says in this week’s podcast, there could be significant tradeoffs. But who should take the biggest hit? In this week's discussion, Pete takes the point of view of employers and host Mason King has the perspective of someone who plans to retire soon. They also also hash out the viability of tweaking the current Social Security system to get the fund back on track.
- 3 weeks ago45 min
He left the Fortune 500 fast track for local nonprofits and to help men be better fathers
Larry Smith grew up on the east side of Indianapolis. After graduating from Southport High School and then Williams College, he landed at Fortune 500 engine maker Cummins Inc. and quickly found himself on the fast track to upper management. By his early 30s he already was director of corporate strategy, but he felt a strong calling to a different path. Smith switched gears and started a distinguished career in the Indy area’s nonprofit sector, holding leadership positions with such organizations as Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, YMCA of Greater Indianapolis, Indiana University’s Randall L. Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence and the Hamilton County Community Foundation. Then, in 2022, he received another calling – this one through actual phone calls and text messages – to take over as president and CEO of Fathers and Families Center, a modest Indianapolis nonprofit that provides counseling and other resources to help men become better fathers and stabilize their families. The mission harmonized with Smith’s lived experience, since he grew up without a father and himself became a father when he was 16. On this week’s podcast, Smith lays out his plans to continue growing the capacity of the center with hopes of doubling the number of men served by its programs. To that end, it is in final stages of a $5.5 million fundraising campaign and preparing to move into a new headquarters near the Children’s Museum. Smith also explains his strategy for doubling revenue within five years or so, including a new focus on individual contributions.
- Jun 29, 202649 min
Indy cybersecurity expert on preparing for impending AI threat to businesses
Last week, an international alliance of intelligence agencies released a warning about the evolution of AI and how it soon will be able to overwhelm cyber protections used by governments and businesses. This will happen within a matter of months, according to the group, and companies should take an all-hands on deck approach to the threat. That means significant involvement from owners, top executives and other leaders. To get a sense of the gravity of the warning, IBJ Podcast host Mason King invited cybersecurity expert Chetrice Romero to be the guest this week. Romero started her career in public relations but developed expertise in cybersecurity as a state and federal employee. Her positions have included cybersecurity program director for the Indiana Office of Technology and the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, and cybersecurity adviser and state coordinator for the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. She currently works for the law firm Ice Miller, helping clients prepare for cyber attacks and their aftermath. In this week’s podcast, Romero explains the risks involved in the looming AI-related threat and why the time to prepare is now. She also shares what she learned from her somber experience on the search and rescue task force responding to the Surfside condo building collapse in 2021.
- Jun 22, 202648 min
Immigration law firm swells from one-man band to 137 employees, thousands of cases
In 2009, a freshly graduated Jason Flora opened a law firm in a tiny office on the west side of Indianapolis near Hispanic-run car lots, Honduran restaurants and Guatemalan grocery stores. In its early days, the firm was a one-man shop, with Flora, who speaks Spanish fluently, working 60 hours or more a week and often driving back and forth between Chicago’s immigration court and his office. Last month, Flora Legal Group ranked No. 3 on IBJ’s list of the region’s fastest-growing companies based on its two-year growth, which ballooned 250%. It now has 23 attorneys among its nearly 140 full-time employees, who handle thousands of cases per year. And yet the firm’s mission is essentially the same as it was in 2009: to protect the rights of immigrants and provide the legal services they need — particularly in immigration cases — to make their lives better and more prosperous. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Flora expounds on the evolution of his firm. As he explains it, one of the reasons he started his career as a street lawyer was due to the lack of interest from recruiters in established law firms. And he delves into how he learned he could be more valuable by pursuing more growth for the firm than he could by spending all of his time practicing law.
- Jun 15, 202642 min
Indy-based tech exec on joining global firm, being remote-only leader
Darin Brown is an executive for a global software testing firm with hundreds of employees and a roster of some 80,000 freelancers. But to do his job, he doesn’t have to leave his home in Westfield, Indiana. The firm, known as Testlio, is one of an increasing number of companies that don’t have physical home bases and instead let employees work entirely remotely. Brown recently had the same arrangement when he worked for Zoom, the company virtually synonymous with remote work. In 2022, Zoom acquired a startup that Brown co-founded in central Indiana which led to him being named Zoom’s head of product for productivity applications. He left Zoom earlier this year to be Testlio’s chief product and technology officer. Brown boasts a distinguished career in the Indianapolis area tech community as a project manager and developer. The list of companies includes ChaCha Search, ExactTarget, Salesforce and then Angie’s List, where he was chief technology officer. There he found a problem that he was inspired to solve by co-founding the startup Docket, which then led him to Zoom. In this week’s podcast, Brown discusses his new position with Testlio, his tenure with Zoom and how he made the transition at mid-career from supervising team members in the office to being an online-only leader.
- Jun 8, 202632 min
Indy Pride chair talks festival changes, political backdrop and financial challenges
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Indy Pride Inc. board Chair Alex Richardson previews the June 13 parade on Massachusetts Avenue and a revamped festival footprint spanning Military Park and White River State Park as the nonprofit marches forward under new leadership. Richardson, a DePauw University faculty member who became board chair in December, discusses the January hire of Executive Director Jennifer Carruthers, who previously led Capital City Pride in Des Moines. Richardson also addresses the financial pressures facing Indy Pride, including a $210,000 budget shortfall in 2024 tied in part to reduced corporate sponsorship, and explains how new individual giving programs and small-business outreach aim to close that gap. This year’s events will include a Saturday night concert featuring headliners Todrick Hall, Brooke Eden and Crystal Waters, in addition to a New York City ballroom showcase rooted in the Harlem ballroom scene of the early 1970s. Richardson also responds to Gov. Mike Braun's proclamation of June as "Nuclear Family Month.”
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